Page 30 of Roguefinder

“Are these catacombs?” I asked in a low voice.

“Yes,” Jesse said without slowing.

“Where are the bodies?”

He glanced at me over his shoulder. “Some were looted. Others were mined for relics until the Church moved them.”

Questions rose, but I filed them away. He’d love answering them later—and he’d go full professor mode while I spent the whole time trying not to get caught staring at his mouth. My favorite way to learn.

He moved faster, his eyes casting a bouncing golden light over the walls. The next set of stairs were narrower, the stones grooved in the center.

Jesse’s growl echoed off the ceiling. He shot forward in a blur of speed. Swallowing a yelp, I lurched after him. He rounded a corner.

And stopped.

Not the tense, tactical pauses he’d done on the way to the catacombs. This was abrupt, like a record needle scratch.

He spun, his shoes scuffing against the stone.

“What’s wrong?” I asked as loudly as I dared.

His brow creased, and a look of disbelief marred his features. “I lost it.”

“The scent?”

He nodded, and his frown deepened as he continued his slow pivot. “It’s just…gone.” He brushed past me and walked a few paces up the corridor. “It was here. Right here.” He tested the air again. Took several more steps and drew a deep breath.

My heart thumped as I drifted closer.

He turned back to me with a mix of anger and confusion in his eyes. “Nothing. It’s like Ulfrik was never here.”

I gripped my backpack straps. “Tell me what you need.”

He looked around, his anger shifting into something steady and determined. “Stay close,” he said. “I want to retrace my steps.”

Over the next twenty minutes, he worked the tunnels in a tight grid pattern that rivaled his sock drawer. I hovered at his back and tried to be useful by not bumping into anything. When I’d started to imagine myself as a skeleton on one of the shelves with my backpack still strapped to my shoulders, he halted at last.

“There’s nothing down here,” he said grimly. “Come on.”

Upstairs, the main level opened into a modest entry space with whitewashed walls and glass cases displaying fragments of ancient stone. A handful of framed photographs showed the tunnels below from different angles, their captions in Italian and English. The family from outside had joined a line of tourists at the payment counter. The woman behind the register spotted us and frowned.

“Hey!” She pointed at us, then at a sign on the wall. “Everyone have to pay admission!”

Heads turned, and murmurs lifted as rain-soaked tourists looked us over. Jesse strode to the register and produced a wad of euros. He peeled off several and handed them over.

“Scusi, scusi,” he said. “Mi dispiace.”

The woman muttered something as he returned to me. “Let’s go,” he said under his breath.

We emerged onto the wet street, where traffic had thickened. Raised voices cut through the rain. Twenty feet away, a heavyset man in a baggy suit stood beside an idling cab, one hand braced against the open rear door. The gold watch on his wrist was flashy enough to be seen from space. A woman inside the car leaned away from him, her voice sharp and agitated. They went back and forth in a language that sounded like it was missing half its vowels. Russian, maybe. Whatever they argued about, I couldn’t catch a word of it. Neither, apparently, could Jesse, whose attention had already moved past them.

The woman yanked the door shut. The cab pulled into traffic and sped off.

The man stared after it with his arms hanging at his sides, his sleeve swallowing his watch. After a second, he splashed across the street. His scalp showed through long strands of brown hair he’d combed from one side of his head to the other.

“Caleb.”

I turned. Jesse waited for me, his jaw set and lines of tension around his mouth.